“We chased the consumer with aggressive discounting in November and December . . . so when we got to the stocktake sale consumers didn’t need to purchase,” – Bernie Brookes, Myer Chief Executive, Feb 7, 2011.

Well there you have it; the head of our largest retailer declaring that they only have one weapon in their marketing armory and they’ve fired it. May as well pack up and go home.

They used to tell us in marketing school that there was Product, Price, Packaging and Distribution. Turns out there’s just Price.

Retail is in some trouble. Much angst about the feelthy internet gobbling up THEIR sales.

Do this for me: open a newspaper and look at the retail ads.

Page after page. Photos of products with the price next to them. I forgive your thinking that nothing has changed in forty years of retail advertising.

Here’s a clue, Bernie. If it’s not working, try something different. Try putting QR codes in your ads linking to videos that explain why I need your product.

Supermarkets: I know what your product range is. I know where your chain sits on the price spectrum. I know about loss leaders. I’m not running in to your store because you have tomatoes on special. If price is my key criteria, I’ve already made the decision. You offer me no extra information in your advertising and no reason to visit. Supermarkets and liquor stores treat their customers like idiots.

Car sellers: instead of a page full of empty cars photographed in a car yard, link to a video of a salesman pitching the virtues of each car. Isn’t that their job?

Myer and David Jones hope that their photo of competitively priced manchester triggers my realisation that I need a new set. But I don’t buy manchester on price.

If I have a pressing need to buy something and I see it advertised at a discounted price, I’m probably interested. But at any one time there are DOZENS of things I’ve imagined I need. I ruined my pressure cooker. I want new lighting (I always want new lighting). Need to get bloody birthday presents. But the thought of visiting your store is just completely uninspiring.

Will I be surprised by what you’re selling? [Oh wow, David Jones is selling dancing lessons]. Will I be entertained by an in-store demonstration? [So here’s how you cook buffalo in a pressure cooker]. Will someone lead me by the hand to the various departments and save me 50% of shopping time? No. No. No.

Price is a trigger but only in some circumstances – there are other factors at play. Presence, inspiration and salesmanship are at the core of discretionary purchases.

In another universe, here’s what Bernie said about the failure of the January stocktaking sales:

“If we continue to rely on discounting, we’re toast. We need to get people in to our stores. We need to rejuvenate the shopping experience. We need to train our staff better. Luckily, we’re blessed with visionary staff and diligent management. Bring it on”.

In the 1950s, new products were new. Those days are gone. Learn a new trick. Give me a reason. Show some imagination. Tell me a story. Engage me, you tired old conservative has-beens.

I don’t get it. Why aren’t newspapers more excited about QR codes?

These are codes you can scan with a smart phone to directly access a web page. Within a couple of years over 50% of all phones will have this ability. The following video explains it better than I can; you need to watch 2 mins 30 to get the full force of it:

The contrast between static and dynamic content is unavoidable.

Now here’s a whole medium (video) that newspapers ceded to a competitor (television) after WWII in America and in Australia in the late 1950s. Billions of dollars in ad revenue departed print in search of more compelling advertising. But HOLD THE PHONE.

Smart phones now return the video advantage to print because you can scan a newspaper ad (for example) to access the advertiser’s video content. You don’t have to be sitting in your lounge room; you can be at the breakfast table or a coffee shop or an office desk. And print is the ONLY MEDIUM that can offer this. So Australian newspaper companies are right on to this. Right? Right?

Wasted over two hours booking accomodation online through Virgin Blue. A slew of bugs (see above) that rejected my card, then didn’t, then did and an alternative payment system that did not work.

It’s not just the bugs; the User Interface is dreadful. To book non-return travel requires you to enter data in about 30 fields and pay for each leg separately. If everything goes smoothly, that means a Sydney-Canberra-Perth trip requires 90 fields to be filled in. In my case, because things were not working, close to 500 ticks, numbers and words. For Pete’s sake.

In the end, I abandoned the airline’s site and booked elsewhere. Cost me a few extra bucks.

For consumer sales, the airline industry has almost completely migrated to the web. I love electronic ticketing; that’s a great improvement but the web interface is like a big pontoon. They just launch it and sit on it. Reality is, it needs up-keep and innovation.

Why do they only offer ONE interface? Maybe they could have an API and invite web companies/travel agencies to build interesting front ends.

Why don’t they auction empty seats? And what about this:

Mr Treasure; here are your accommodation, hire car & restaurant vouchers in Sydney and Canberra. For $20 you can be part of Virgin Public, where others on the plane can access your profile details and message you in flight.

Me: No, forget it; just fix up the bugs.

A. These guys are going out of business.
B. They deserve it.

Publisher Henry Rosenbloom and bookseller Mark Rubbo on Late Night Live talked about the fragile state of the industry and blamed the Internet, the Aussie dollar, the GST and the e-book.

And these are real factors. But what has the industry done to re-structure the retail offering to compete in this new environment? Precious little, gentle reader.

I did the bulk of my Christmas shopping in bookshops and it was the same as it was 20 years ago.

I’d add that there are good independent bookshops in Perth that choose their books carefully and are run by knowledgeable and helpful people. Here’s a roll call:

The Lane Bookshop, the Bookcaffe, New Edition and Planet Books.

But follow any of those links to understand why Amazon is doing well. (Particularly the Lane; it’s a pearler).

Maybe unfair to expect much innovation from small, independent booksellers but the bookselling chains do have resources and their lack of innovation is shameful.

I was in Borders. They have an ‘on-line catalogue’ you can use to look up a book. “2 copies in stock”. So I find a guy who helpfully looks in the various possible locations and reports back: out of stock. Get this: the database only updates every 48 hours. If only they had computers! So there’s the first tip for bookshops: implement real time inventory tracking.

I was in Dymocks. The sales person there does the look-up for you. Maybe it’s too complicated for customers … Their database searches every Dymocks store in the state. The title; a popular 2010 book, was out of stock everywhere. What’s meant to happen at this point is the sales person says to you, “we don’t have THAT but have you read THIS?”. Nope. He suggested I try Angus & Robertsons. Tip #2: The customer wants to buy a book NOW. Help the customer to buy a book NOW.

I was in Angus & Robertson’s. That really is a bumhole of a store. Books on the wrong shelves; old titles; the staff going through the motions. But here’s an idea that applies to all three chains: instead of sticking every book in one motherfuckingly huge section, put paper signs in between the books to show where the different letters of the alphabet start. I have thoughtfully illustrated this for you. See above.

But. Why classify by alphabetic order of author anyway? You’re not a bloody library. Tip #4: display books in order of popularity, not by author’s name. I know what you’re thinking. How will I find the book I want if I know the author’s name? See Tip #5.

Tip #5: Put a barcode and a shelf number on every shelf. Scan the book and the shelf barcode when you put it on the shelf so the computer knows exactly where the book is. When people use the catalogue (which could also be an app they download to their phone) it tells you the shelf-number AND shows you a picture of the spine of the book so you can eye-ball it quickly. If it’s out of stock it shows you the location of other books by the same author.

A contemporary book store should be about saving you time, helping you select and delivering a pleasant experience in a physical space. Remaining tips relate to that experience.

New Edition often plays Chopin in the Northbridge shop. Music, atmosphere: here – take my money.

I’d love to see a Recommendation Table. Customers are invited to pull one book off the shelf and put it on the Table. (Yeah I know this screws up the inventory system but it gives the customer a stake). I’d like to see some books OPENED so I can read half a page.

I’d like to do the store’s personality test. 10 multiple choice questions and the store computer generates a reading list which the staff member then turns into a pile of books to peruse.

Or it’s a list of single sentences from the 20 most recent new releases and I pick my favourite three.

If your business is under environmental pressure it doesn’t work to keep doing what you’ve always done. That path leads to extinction. Retail has to aggressively use technology and it has to develop more compelling experiences that differentiate it from online shopping.

Umpiring changes in the game of cricket have been pretty much uniformly praised. The field umpires can refer decisions to a third umpire, who is off the field and has the luxury of watching television replays. Teams can now challenge an umpire’s decision, much the way as tennis players can challenge line calls.

Better decisions and a reduction in subjectivity; that underminer of trust.

High time some objectivity was introduced into the selection procedure. When a team performs badly (not thinking of any team in particular) the population agonises about whether or not certain players should be dropped, to make way for new blood. Decisions about blood are made by a selection panel of former players and are intensely subjective. Remember that selectors are people who know some of the players personally; some not. Have seen some bat and bowl frequently; some less so.

Questions of loyalty arise and the decisions affect livelihoods and careers. It’s a political process and a nasty position for the selectors. Empirically, there is a history of retaining good players for longish periods after their Best-By date. Teams that perform well are seldom changed. Commonly, this results in a sudden decline when two or three good players retire. A period of re-building follows.

Here’s some free beer: why not develop an algorithm which takes the subjectivity out of the process? Do you really need a selection panel? All decisions could be made on form, taking into account relevant history and recent history over a wide criteria range.

Such a system could, for example, remove the lowest ranking batsman and bowler in each match. Although this would change the nature of ‘team’, it would institutionalise renewal and introduce a level of fairness that would do the game credit.

In 2009, HBF moved their advertising to hot shop Meerkats. This year the agency killed the pig at the PADC Awards, mostly due to some terrific TV and radio work for HBF.

Smart cookies. But I drove past their prosaic outdoor campaign today and wondered why they didn’t add a little whimsical touch. My version underneath.

In the mid 1990s I spoke to the first organised meeting of Olive Oil growers in the Gingin region about marketing. There were some small farmers and there was a clutch of Managed Investment Schemes all offering “tax effective” investments with a 24% Return on Investment. Subsequently, investors lost lots of money, the major schemes changed hands at discounted prices and many “entrepreneurs” did well to avoid jail. Yields were less than forecast and prices were lower than forecast.

My main point at the talk was that the region had no cachet as a food production area and needed to develop a brand so they could cooperatively market themselves.

I suggested they cut a deal with the New Norcia Monastry and call the region New Norcia. The monastry has a rich history in olives and a very solid tourism profile. Speculation, but I believe the industry and New Norcia would both have benefited from that approach. It became the Moore River Region instead.

Now the industry is established and approaching large scale production. The main game is export, but my comments relate to domestic marketing.

The competition is European imports; often old and occasionally rancid. The Australian industry has been loathe to criticise the Europeans; worried about stepping on toes. The Australians now have a voluntary Code of Conduct; most companies have signed up. Not surprising, since (on my reading at least) it doesn’t actually require you to do anything.

I reckon the locals should have established a cooperative marketing fund to tell the consumer that olive oil is a fresh product. They could have worked with the food industry on this and created an awareness of New Season Olive Oil (it is bottled May – June). They could have stipulated year of harvest on the front of the label, as happens with wine. The Code says year of harvest is optional; “for those growers promoting freshness”. The York Olive Oil Company is one of the very few companies that prominently state year of harvest. Others are happy for you not to know how old the oil is – they don’t want to get caught with old stock.

Neither do the retailers, who don’t want to bother with the logistics of returns. And the industry doesn’t want the extra cost. So everyone just feeds their new olive oil into the pipeline when the old stock runs out. In the Re Store in Northbridge, supposedly a gourmet food store, there was still no new season olive oil at the end of September. Every bottle at least 15 months old.

The Code of Conduct discourages the use of ‘Cold Pressed’ in labelling. “Not an indicator of quality… not recommended”. Well practically every Australian oil is described as ‘cold pressed’. Lucky it’s a voluntary code.

Of course the manufacturers all want to establish a brand name so they’re desperate to get distribution. That means you can buy very good oil at ridiculously low prices. But turn the bottles around and compare the Best Before dates. Oil made in 2009 will say ‘Best Before 2011′. Not sure what it’s best for then; maybe it still works as a lubricant.

A disappointing result for a new industry which was well placed to influence food culture and food marketing.

This article not sponsored by the Fresh Food People or MasterChef Curtis Stone.

The iPad’s about to become the most quickly adopted electronic device of all time. And it’s throttled the growth of netbooks, notebooks and netwooks. Netwooks have not been invented yet; full marks if you noticed that.

It’s a great marketing case study because design-lust aside, the iPad addresses a consumer need the market was ignoring. Simplicity of use. Phone makers, particularly Apple, inherently understand the market’s hatred of complexity. But the navigability of that particular interface (press one button to access any application) is one of the great and obvious ideas in the short history of computing. For consumers who’ve been intimidated by the Windows interface since Bill was a boy, the iPad is a relatively safe and easy technology purchase.

But with the simplicity comes sacrifice. The tablet interface is annoyingly flawed. The ends of my fingers are flat from pounding the screen waiting for it to react properly.

The closed Apple architecture makes web browsing a short-term activity. In many cases you miss the precision of the mouse and the spat between Adobe and Apple means you can’t be confident that any web site will perform as it should. The on-screen keyboard is fine for a few minutes, but that’s all.

Of course, companies can design aps specifically for the iPad; allowing maximum use of the finger but those have cut-down functionality. The newspapers will sell you a subscription so you can read their stories but unlike the netbook, they won’t let you copy/paste a section and email it to a friend. Rupert is completely wrong on this; consumers will not pay for restricted access on the iPad when they can get open access on the web.

So on the iPad; games? Sure. eBooks? Definitely. But web browsing and office or work applications; nup. If you already have an iPhone, you’re better off with a netbook. An iPad will just duplicate the shortcomings of your iPhone.

I haven’t seen any netbook manufacturers taking that line but I think there’s a strong case for spelling it out.

Have a look at this official promotional video for Western Australia and then we’ll talk. When I say ‘talk’ I mean ‘rant’.

Tourism marketing in Western Australia is famously abysmal. Look critically at this from the viewpoint of international tourism marketing. What is the positioning of Western Australia as a tourism product? What is it that distinguishes Western Australia from any other tourism destination in the world? Come on; I’m waiting!

It’s a product that doesn’t know what it is. The ad is a case study in poor strategic thinking.

Does the tourism authority think we the only place in the world with beaches and waterways? The only thing to be said in favour of Perth beaches is that they are quaint, reflecting the determination of generations to resist ANY tourism development of ANY sort on even ONE of them. Welcome to 1960.

Why do we have to re-assure people that there are designer clothing shops in Perth? Are we competing with Paris?

Who is the target market for this ad? If it is young people, are they going to fly 24 hours on a plane to drink beer in the Ocean Beach Hotel? “Well honey; it’s Carnivale in Rio or a beer in a pub in Perth. Toss a coin.”

If ‘relaxed lifestyle’ is all we have going for us; NEWSFLASH; that’s an immigration strategy, not a tourism strategy.

If local colour is what we’re selling, for God’s sake, don’t fill up the ad with bland-looking models acting badly. Use REAL people who look interesting. Let’s hear some Australian accents! Americans in particular find Australian accents very engaging; instead we serenade them with insipid guitar music.

Ironically, they’re using Russell Morris’s ‘The Real Thing’ as the sound track and they’ve completely emasculated the REAL version and turned it into MUZAC. The original is a fabulous arrangement which could be the basis for a very strong campaign and HOLD THE PHONE they’ve removed the emotional underpinning of the song; the line that says: “there’s a meaning there for me”. *Bangs head against desk*.

Now what is the only thing in this ad which will be remembered by international viewers? Close your eyes for a minute and pretend you’re not Australian. What stood out?

Kangaroos. The reason they keep putting kangaroos into ads for Australia is that research shows people love them. So, knowing that, do we create wildlife corridors close to the city and promote ourselves as the wild west of Australia? Do we invite tourists onto golf courses where kangaroos hang out? If Kings Park were populated with kangaroos and you could take your pet kangaroo for a hop along the beach, which city in Australia would Oprah be visiting?

Tourism marketing (like just about all marketing) is PRODUCT and BRANDING and not much else. We have neither product nor branding at present. Tourism Australia is absolutely correct to direct Oprah to Sydney, Melbourne and the Great Barrier Reef. They’re brands and Perth is not. How much do you want to bet Oprah will nurse a joey on camera?

Here’s a song about Perth.

Arthur C. Clarke said, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. And Bret R. Treasure said, “some magicians charge too much”. If you are a client, and you don’t know much about the web, you’re at risk of paying a lot more than you should.

Here are a few getting-started tips for people who need a web site but don’t know much about technology.

1. Be honest about your own capabilities

If you’ve never created a web page yourself, if you’ve never heard of ftp and if the following sends shivers up your spine,

you’re at risk of not getting good value for money. The word ‘sucker’ appears on your forehead as soon as you open your mouth and after that, your fate depends on the ethics and business model of the person/company you’re dealing with. Not to put too fine a point on it, the price you pay can be three times too high if you get it wrong. So if think Joomla is state of the art or even, a movie, use a consultant to help you through the process. Declaration of interest: that’s what I do.

2. Work out with the consultant/developer what the hell you’re doing

Because if you just walk into a web developer and say ‘I need a web site’, some will give you an off-the-shelf solution that is efficient for THEM to deliver and profitable for THEM to deliver. Some think it’s NOT in their interest to spend a lot of time with you working out your business objectives but that’s what needs to happen. If you’re already very clear on it and you are completely up to date on web technologies; different thing. Read on anyway.

3. Do things in the right order

If you’re not using a consultant I still recommend working out your business plan with an objective third party before you talk to a web developer. If you don’t know what the web can do for you, sit down with your consultant/advisor and brainstorm it.

If you want good SEO, involve that person at the planning stage, not after you’ve chosen a graphic designer or platform. Then do steps 4, 5 and 6.

4. Get your peeps together

A web developer will probably say they can do the lot – believe me; that’s not necessarily a good outcome.

Here’s what you need:

(a) Someone who can write good content (b) A good graphic designer (c) A web developer with experience on your platform of choice. By ‘platform’ I mean what software you’re using to create and maintain the web site. Many developers only use one platform; it may be over/underpowered and it may be overly complicated. Choose your platform with your consultant and your developer. (d) An SEO person. Search Engine Optimisation is only necessary if you want people to be able to find you on Google. (e) You may also need a professional photographer because, no, the ones you took yourself are not good enough. Likewise for video.

If there are people you trust with these skills, build the project around them. If you have a copywriter whose style you like, insist that the web developer use them. Same applies to the graphic artist whose style you like.

5. Do the pen and paper thing

Create a flow chart showing how you think the site should work. That way you’ll know how much content you need and people will be able to cost it properly. The consultant can drive this.

6. Get some quotes

Show your plan, your resources and your flow chart to a web developer. Crunch the numbers and make a decision not on the basis of the cheapest price but on who gives you the most confidence.

7. Be afraid

- Graphic designers and web developers will often say they do SEO. Oh really?
- Some companies do everything in-house. Often means a lack of specialists and a factory-like approach.
- Freelancers may not have adequate business systems and structures.
- Make sure you ask who in the business is doing what. Understand the process they use.
- Make sure you ask who owns the intellectual property.
- Insist on a contract and make sure it spells out a cheap dispute resolution process.
- Make sure you ask what happens to your web site, its code and its passwords when their main man goes out of business/has a mental breakdown.

8. Be very afraid

The fixed price plans offered by web development companies are designed to suck you in and spit you out. You don’t need a 10 page web site with a template and an SEO package. You need a web strategy that improves your business and pays for itself very quickly.

Using individual specialists will almost certainly cost you less than an all-in-one solution from a larger firm and you’ll get a better result.